He put his right arm about her neck, and used her as a crutch. This was no time to stand on ceremony. But the pain was too intolerable to move more than a few steps. With a groan he fell against the sloping foot of the cliff. "You must leave me here," he said, with a gasp.
"Leave you here?" she cried. "Why you will drown."
"We shall both drown if you stay," he answered.
"It doesn't matter about me a bit," she wailed, and she brushed away the blinding tears with her hand. "But you—you—oh! you must be saved at all costs."
"Perhaps, if you make haste you will be able to get help before it is too late," he said.
"But how? Oh! I will do anything for you. Tell me what I can do for the best."
"Make your way into town as fast as you can. Tell the first man you meet how I am situated. Let one party come round here with a boat, and another party come over the cliffs with a stretcher. Everything depends on the time it takes."
"Oh! I will fly all the distance," she said, with liquid eyes; "but who shall I say is hurt? I do not even know your name."
"Rufus Sterne," he answered. "Everybody in St. Gaved knows me."
She looked at him for a moment, pityingly, pleadingly, then rushed away over the level sand in the direction of Penwith Cove. She forgot her bruises and stiffness, and did not heed that every step was a stab of pain.